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150 shaking her head doubtfully. "Oh, dear! I hate to fail with a girl when I've tried so," she exclaimed.

Miss Bartholomew was nearer right in her chance surmise about the Boulangeat costume than she knew—nearer right than Reba herself knew. For it was not until Reba was leaning over her trunk late that Friday night, folding the gray creation safely away between layers of tissue paper in the second tray, that it occurred to her to be married in it.

She rose, went over to the window and raised the curtain. The stars were shining. It promised to be fair. Why not? And the twenty-dollar hat, too, that had never been out of the oblong room since the day of its arrival—why not christen that as well? And the gray shoes and stockings, and the feather boa, perhaps? She would never have another chance. Besides, was it not her wedding-day? Her long black dust-coat, bought long ago for the railroad journeys to the sea, would conceal her from chin to ankles as she left the Alliance, and a half-dozen blocks away she would be hidden in the blessed city crowds. Nathan had told her that he was to honor the occasion with a brand new suit of blue serge. Well, she also would come freshly dressed.

The sun shone very bright the next morning. The air was clear and cool. Nature had a sort of shining quality on the morning of Reba's wedding-day, as if it had just dipped itself in cold water and felt exhilarated. From the bits of snowy white clouds, shining bright against the clear blue sky, high up above the copings and cornices of the buildings, down to the shining plate-glass show-windows, shining brass doorplates, shining black sides of the automobiles